Mail from Malawi: Pool Time

Julian - always ready to swim!

Three days a week, as part of our Physical Education class, we take the students down to a hotel and swim in the pool. The kids love it, and it is a great way to cool down on the really hot days. (It came in really handy when we had no water for a week and could at least get wet by jumping into the very chlorinated pool!)

Six of the seven students, ready to walk to the pool.

We make the students tread water for 10 minutes each day.

Gift concentrating on the perfect jump into the shallow pool. He had so much fun!

They specialize in having two people jump at a time, with one person always backing out at the last minute.

Alyssa wearing a life-jacket that's bigger than her to learn how to swim. She doesn't use the life-jacket anymore. :)

The pool is circular, so we often have them swim in one direction to create a whirlpool.

They love it because it's fun. We love it because they get exercise and burn energy.
And also because it's fun :)

Julian & Lety - Very enthusiastic students!

Taking a little rest :)

Julian and Claudio waiting for the girls to finish changing so we can go home.

Each Christmas, the students put on a little swimming show for their parents - the Swimming Gala. This past Christmas we had each student demonstrate a different stroke, or for the younger ones, another skill. Gift showed us how to kick and Alyssa demonstrated holding her breath underwater. We also had a competition as to who had the best cannon-bomb jump, among others. The parents were the judges and used number cards to give their score. It was great fun and very entertaining!

Gift demonstrates how to kick.

Students waiting to demonstrate different strokes.

The photographers.

The spectators & judges.

In our last package from the university, Laurel and I each received a rubber duck. We had no need for rubber ducks, so we took them to school and on our last day of swimming, we had relay races that involved pushing the ducks across the pool without touching them. That was by far the best day of swimming this school year!